I see you there: scanning your Google Reader instead of doing your work.  Don’t worry, I won’t tell.  Instead, I will offer you some interesting arts-related tidbits to round out your selection of smarmy political commentary and funny animal videos.

One thing that has been on my mind lately is community.  I’ve been reflecting on how grateful I am for the communities around me (via some essays for a workshop application) and the fascinating ways in which they intersect.  Salsa dancers and journalists, undergraduate music majors, bloggers, community activists, jazz elders, marketers, neighborhood associations, theater employees, rich entertainment clients, local politicians: I affect and am affected by my participation in all of these and more.  I am only a moderate Facebook-user, and I am new to Twitter.  At that reasonable level of non-addiction it is easy to see how these technologies really do help connect busy people to each others’ happenings, even if is only by a thin, virtual fishing line.

On a different topic, I recently reconnected with my good friend Yuri, who talked about self-publishing, pedagogy and education in the “real world” (outside of the university system) and the specific desire to start a blog/internet resource for more advanced, but ever-exploring jazz pianists along the lines of NewMusicBox.  If I were to find time to be a member of the writing team, one of my first posts would most certainly be about injury-preventive technique.  I’ve managed to avoid back and wrist pain in my playing for quite some time, but with some increased stress they have returned.  The prerogative is to recognize the whole-body athleticism of piano playing and develop a pre-cognitive body awareness that allows you to naturally support your body and use your muscles without undue wear-and-tear.  The result can be liberating.  Though I am early on my journey here, I can recommend two great resources:

1. this book: What Every PIanist Needs To Know About The Body, by Thomas Mark.  Not an anatomy reference tome, but rather a guided practice to how the body works when it is at the piano.

2. this person: Barbara Lister-Sink.  Only an hour from where I live resides a super-friendly piano health guru, with a great DVD and training curriculum to boot.  I saw her give a workshop and I’ll certainly be back for more.

The purpose of these techniques isn’t just to prevent injury, but rather to liberate the body so that a deeper musician expression might be executed, unencumbered by any form of resistance, physical, mental, or otherwise.

One last note before I head off to rehearsal: I am still in love with “Vento Em Madeira” by Lea Freire.  Soundtrack of my life!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 10:49 am and is filed under EWHArtist, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.